Homeschooling High School - a case study

Freshman year, our oldest child aspired to be a groundskeeper at Wrigley Field, and even had the alley picked out that he could park his car in, knowing he could probably not afford an apartment on that salary. Fast forward eight years and he is in his second year of working for a tech company in Silicone Valley after completing college in three years.

So, how did he get from point A to point B? We found his journey educational, and I thought you might as well.

At the end of that first year of high school I was about ready to give up. With a toddler under foot and four other kids in between our youngest and oldest, my brain could not begin to process trigonometry, let alone feel like I had time to do high school justice.

On my knees, I realized God was not freeing me from homeschooling (despite checking out the local school's website and researching bus schedules), but instead He was calling me to press in and press on.

Sophomore year, everything began to change.

The change came because we found a focus. He started researching careers, colleges, majors. We talked at length about interests and priorities.We started narrowing in on engineering fields and looking at schools like Le Tourneau, Cedarville, Baylor, and NIU.

PSAT test done. Not a bad score, but we thought the ACT would be a better fit than the SAT.

Later that year, ACT done with a decent score.

Junior year - dual enrollment through community college and Liberty University. Each class around $500 each for 3 college credits.

After his junior year, which was mostly college credit, he attended a week long engineering camp at Cedarville. It cost $400 at the time and was some of the best money we've ever spent.

He came home, filled out his application, with an interest in Computer Science, and never looked back.

Senior year, more of the same and as we began to weigh the financial cost of college he decided to give the ACT another shot to try for the next scholarship level. Many colleges post their scholarship thresh-holds based on ACT/SAT scores and/or GPA.

He spent about 6 weeks really studying for the ACT (strategizing mostly, but also boosting some areas of skill weakness) and went and sat for the test again April of his senior year during a weekend visit to Cedarville. He cleared the next bracket and saved himself over $5,000 with that one test.

Graduated high school with 55 college credits, some from CLEP tests, but mostly actual college classes. 

Following graduation he headed off to Cedarville where he went on to earn a 4.0 every semester there, graduating in three years and accepting a position outside San Jose. Although we would love to have him closer to home, it has been an exciting experience watching him thrive through college and beyond. He also graduated with no debt, which is another post-worthy topic that will have to wait for another day. 

We learned a lot that first round of homeschooling high school. And, unfortunately, most of it did not apply to round 2, or round 3. Each child is so different in interests, abilities, learning styles, and personalities that each education needs to be tailor made as well. However, the more we know, the more we can offer them the world as the set out.

That first experience did make us pretty passionate about homeschooling high school and has definitely helped encourage me on the not so sunny days that are bound to come.

Back to more practical areas next time, but now and then it is good to pause for some inspiration to remember why we are trying to be teacher, guidance counselor, parent, and the million other roles that homeschooling an older teen demands.

Don't give up, these are priceless years.